My second big announcement from the Organize 365 National Convention is the exciting news that we are going to have Paper Organizing Retreats! That’s right, you can literally pack up all of your paper into boxes, travel to Cincinnati, and organize your paper during a productive weekend retreat with key members of the Organize 365 Team – how awesome is that? I’m so excited! I’ve wanted to start these Paper Organizing Retreats for years. When I began Organize 365 in 2012, I knew I needed to launch a unique organizing retreat where people could bring their paper and organize all of it (while listening to some great music and snacking on delicious food as we go) – it was the PERFECT plan. But it took six years to turn that vision into a reality, and in many ways, I’m glad it took so long because now I’m 100% sure that I’ve come up with the best products, best structure, and the best team possible. After six years of long hours and lots of hard work, we have finally done it! Organizing Paper Is Hard Organizing paper isn’t the most exciting thing in the world, especially if you aren’t a passionate organizer. At home, it’s easy to get distracted and procrastinate, which is why it’s such a good idea to join one of my Paper Organizing Retreats where you can focus and actually get work done. But one of the main reasons to attend a retreat like this is so you can have the opportunity to ask questions to professional organizers. You’ll know exactly what you’re doing, and you’ll be able to avoid shredding a file that you really shouldn’t have because, unfortunately, there are no time machines when it comes to organizing paperwork! The REAL Reason For My Paper Organizing Retreats Yes, I like to help people organize their paper, and I love the community of organizers we have here at Organize 365 and the Sunday Basket®. BUT there is a deeper, more personal reason why I decided to launch these retreats. When my kids were young, they got a lot of different diagnoses including things like autism, ADHD, bipolar, food sensitives, and so on. And you know what? It was so overwhelming! I soon transformed into a protective mama bear. I was determined to know as much as possible about their conditions and I’m sure a lot of mothers who find themselves in similar situations do the same thing. Who can blame us? Whenever we receive unexpected news like a medical diagnosis or a sudden death in the family, it’s like your entire world comes crashing down. One minute, you’re sailing through life, the birds are singing, and your only concern is what you’re going to cook for dinner. And then BANG, you hear some terrible news. Then you’re devastated and left with all this paperwork you didn’t even know existed. I know that feeling all too well, which is why I wanted to create the Paper Organizing Retreats to help reduce stress at a time in your life when you feel like everything is just falling apart. Getting Organized On The Retreat On a more light-hearted note, when you attend the retreat, you’re guaranteed to leave a lot more organized than you were when you arrived! If you’ve got your hands on one of the new Friday Workboxes that have just been released for your home-based business, you can take it with you to the retreat and get stuff into it. The Friday Workboxes can really help you to get an effective system in place so you have more structure and direction to take your business that extra step further. The retreat begins at 9 am on Saturday morning. When you arrive, you’ll have your own organizing table which includes a shredding bag and a recycling bag. You’ll spend a lot of time during the first half of Saturday going through your paper and organizing them into three piles: shredding, deleting, and the keep pile. Everything you want to shred can go into the shredding bag, the paper you want to recycle can go into the recycling bag, and the rest of the paper is what you’ll need to focus most of your time and energy into organizing. You can then begin to